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Do alphabets need to be so complicated?

 Language Learning Forum : General discussion Post Reply
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lichtrausch
Triglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5961 days ago
525 posts - 1072 votes 
Speaks: English*, German, Japanese
Studies: Korean, Mandarin

 
 Message 49 of 115
16 October 2010 at 7:38pm | IP Logged 
BiaHuda wrote:
lichtrausch wrote:
BiaHuda wrote:
Mandarin is an elitist language
that will eventually go the way of the
old Manchurian that is the basis for the Việt Sino relationship everyone talks
about.

Mandarin is spoken from north to south, from Heilongjiang to Sichuan, by something like
800 million people as a mother language. It's not going anywhere anytime soon.


So what? It doesnt make writing in Mandarin a good idea. I would be very surprized BTW
if 8000000000 Chinese actually spoke Mandarin on a daily basis. There are 50 dialects
in China about as mutually intelligeble as French and Italian.

What do you mean "so what"? You said Mandarin would go the way of Manchurian, which is
a dead language. I said 800 million people speak Mandarin so that is highly unlikely.
You didn't say "written Mandarin". You said "Mandarin". And why wouldn't those 800
million native speakers of Mandarin speak it daily? The vast majority of them live
surrounded by other native speakers of Mandarin. I don't know where the other Chinese
languages come into the picture. 800 million people speak Mandarin natively. That does
not include speakers of Cantonese, Wu, Hakka, etc.

Here's a map for you so you can visualize the spread of Mandarin:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Map_of_sinitic_languages-e n.svg


1 person has voted this message useful



fireflies
Senior Member
Joined 5182 days ago
172 posts - 234 votes 
Speaks: English*

 
 Message 50 of 115
16 October 2010 at 7:50pm | IP Logged 
BiaHuda wrote:
lichtrausch wrote:
BiaHuda wrote:
Mandarin is an elitist language that will eventually go the way of the
old Manchurian that is the basis for the Việt Sino relationship everyone talks
about.

Mandarin is spoken from north to south, from Heilongjiang to Sichuan, by something like
800 million people as a mother language. It's not going anywhere anytime soon.


So what? It doesnt make writing in Mandarin a good idea. I would be very surprized BTW if 8000000000 Chinese actually spoke Mandarin on a daily basis. There are 50 dialects in China about as mutually intelligeble as French and Italian.


I read sections of a book on Mandarin and it was mentioned that Mandarin is a dialect (the Beijing dialect) chosen in the 20th century to serve as the lingua franca for the country. Prior to that time there were a lot of dialects in use and no real common language. In other words, the promotion of a common national language is a relatively recent thing there.

I got the impression they artifically tweaked the Beijing dialect around to standardize it into what is known as Mandarin.

I sometimes wonder if the native speaker #s for Mandarin are inflated a bit too. I don't know much about it so sorry if I was fuzzy on the details. I think the gist of what I was saying in the previous paragraphs holds true.



Edited by fireflies on 16 October 2010 at 7:51pm
1 person has voted this message useful



BiaHuda
Triglot
Groupie
Vietnam
Joined 5364 days ago
97 posts - 127 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish, Vietnamese
Studies: Cantonese

 
 Message 51 of 115
16 October 2010 at 8:01pm | IP Logged 
lichtrausch wrote:
BiaHuda wrote:
lichtrausch wrote:
BiaHuda wrote:
Mandarin is an elitist language
that will eventually go the way of the
old Manchurian that is the basis for the Việt Sino relationship everyone talks
about.

Mandarin is spoken from north to south, from Heilongjiang to Sichuan, by something like
800 million people as a mother language. It's not going anywhere anytime soon.


So what? It doesnt make writing in Mandarin a good idea. I would be very surprized BTW
if 8000000000 Chinese actually spoke Mandarin on a daily basis. There are 50 dialects
in China about as mutually intelligeble as French and Italian.

What do you mean "so what"? You said Mandarin would go the way of Manchurian, which is
a dead language. I said 800 million people speak Mandarin so that is highly unlikely.
You didn't say "written Mandarin". You said "Mandarin". And why wouldn't those 800
million native speakers of Mandarin speak it daily? The vast majority of them live
surrounded by other native speakers of Mandarin. I don't know where the other Chinese
languages come into the picture. 800 million people speak Mandarin natively. That does
not include speakers of Cantonese, Wu, Hakka, etc.

Here's a map for you so you can visualize the spread of Mandarin:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Map_of_sinitic_languages-e n.svg



OK aside from the fact that 800 million people speak Mandarin ( I still highly doubt this though, not to say that 800 million can't speak it), it is not an everyday language for everyone there. Again aside from that; we are talking about written language here. Granted alot of the characters translate through different languages. I think I said it at the beginning of this post that the main reason for clinging to Mandarin is is tradition. It is the equivelent of asking everyday people to be required to scribe medeviel illuminations. Break out the quill my friend...

Edited by BiaHuda on 16 October 2010 at 8:11pm
2 persons have voted this message useful



lichtrausch
Triglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5961 days ago
525 posts - 1072 votes 
Speaks: English*, German, Japanese
Studies: Korean, Mandarin

 
 Message 52 of 115
16 October 2010 at 8:15pm | IP Logged 
BiaHuda wrote:

OK aside from the fact that 800 million people speak Mandarin ( I still highly doubt this
though, not to say that 800 million can't speak it), it is not an everyday language for
everyone there. Again aside from that; we are talking about written language here.
Granted alot of the characters translate through different languages. I think I said it
at the beginning of this post that the main reason for clinging to Mandarin is is
tradition. It is the equivelent of asking everyday people to be required to scribe
medevil illuminations. Break out the quill my friend...

I mistakenly clicked the vote button when going to reply lol. So whenever you say
Mandarin, you mean "written Mandarin"? This was not clear at all, despite the topic of
the thread. I don't know what your point is.
2 persons have voted this message useful



Siberiano
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Russian Federation
one-giant-leap.Registered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 6494 days ago
465 posts - 696 votes 
Speaks: Russian*, English, ItalianC1, Spanish
Studies: Portuguese, Serbian

 
 Message 53 of 115
16 October 2010 at 8:54pm | IP Logged 
This thread does not look cool. Ari's posts are the most interesting thing here.

Guys, please, stop taking sides prematurely, and you won't need to defend yourself at all costs. Read this and think of why this thread has gone offtopic: http://paulgraham.com/identity.html

There's also more useful reading here: http://paulgraham.com/disagree.html
4 persons have voted this message useful



Linc
Newbie
Macau
Joined 5443 days ago
29 posts - 45 votes
Studies: English
Studies: French

 
 Message 54 of 115
16 October 2010 at 9:00pm | IP Logged 
Siberiano wrote:
This thread does not look cool. Ari's posts are the most interesting thing here.

Guys, please, stop taking sides prematurely, and you won't need to defend yourself at all costs. Read this and think of why this thread has gone offtopic: http://paulgraham.com/identity.html

There's also more useful reading here: http://paulgraham.com/disagree.html


useful, thx
1 person has voted this message useful



fireflies
Senior Member
Joined 5182 days ago
172 posts - 234 votes 
Speaks: English*

 
 Message 55 of 115
16 October 2010 at 9:29pm | IP Logged 
Siberiano wrote:
This thread does not look cool. Ari's posts are the most interesting thing here.

Guys, please, stop taking sides prematurely, and you won't need to defend yourself at all costs. Read this and think of why this thread has gone offtopic: http://paulgraham.com/identity.html

There's also more useful reading here: http://paulgraham.com/disagree.html


It seemed like a civil discussion to me. I was unaware that alphabets, scripts and spelling quirks were a political or religious issue in the strictest sense.

I was not offended when someone said English spelling is quirky. Compared to some systems it is.

Basically the easy answer to the whole thread is some scripts and alphabets are hard because they are. Do they need to be? Maybe not, but they are. Its interesting to discuss it regardless... to some people at least.

There is a lot of interest in Mandarin because of how many speakers it has. My highschool offered it and I regret not taking it. The script is one of the things that makes it more daunting to try and learn as a light hobby. On the other hand, I think the script appeals to a lot of people in an artistic/aesthetic way.

Edited by fireflies on 17 October 2010 at 3:23am
2 persons have voted this message useful



John Smith
Bilingual Triglot
Senior Member
Australia
Joined 6043 days ago
396 posts - 542 votes 
Speaks: English*, Czech*, Spanish
Studies: German

 
 Message 56 of 115
17 October 2010 at 2:07am | IP Logged 

Writing systems often appear messy because they stay the same as the pronunciation of a given language changes.

I believe that a lot of writing systems start off being a lot more phonetic than they end up being.



Anyway........ It's too late for English. There are so many different versions around the globe it would be impossible to choose one. Some people pronounce the r in car some don't. Different countries pronounce the vowels differently. Just listen to New Zealand English. In Australia we say fish. In New Zealand they say fush.
English's messy spelling means that we are all equal when it comes to learning how to read and write. No matter what variety of English you speak




1 person has voted this message useful



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